[Pkg-ofed-devel] Update OFED to latest upstream

[Mehdi Dogguy]

Hi,

On 31/12/2015 09:54, Talat mellanox wrote:
> Thank you for your prompt response.
> 
> On Thu, Dec 31, 2015 at 1:28 AM, Mehdi Dogguy <mehdi at dogguy.org> wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> On 30/12/2015 17:17, Talat mellanox wrote:
>>>
>>> We would like to update the infiniband user space packages [1] in
>>> debian, I saw that you are the maintainer of them. Could you please
>>> assist ?
>>>
>>
>> I've had a look at the first list. AFAIK, only the following packages
>> require an update:
>>
>> - mstflint: 4.1.0-1.46.gb1cdaf7 from https://www.openfabrics.org/downloads/mstflint/
>> - perftest: 3.0-0.16.gb2f2e82 from https://www.openfabrics.org/downloads/perftest/
>> - infiniband-diags: 1.6.6 from https://www.openfabrics.org/downloads/management/
>> - ibacm: ibacm-1.1.0 from https://www.openfabrics.org/downloads/rdmacm/
>> - srptools: 1.0.3 from https://www.openfabrics.org/downloads/srptools/
>> - libibverbs: 1.2.0-rc1 from https://www.openfabrics.org/downloads/verbs/
>>
>> I intend to work on getting those packages updated in Debian. Besides, are
>> you familiar with Debian packaging? And if so, would you like to get involved
>> too?
> 
> Sorry i'm not familure with the Debian packaging, but there is a
> "Debian New Maintainers' Guide" I will take it as a referace,
> if you have another guide I will be happy if you share it with us.
> I will be happy to get involved in such field and learn more about it,
> I have opened "Debian New Member" account and  waiting for acceptation
> "talatb-guest at users.alioth.debian.org", could you please help with
> this?
> 

Those mentioned documents are a very good start. In order to be able to
contribute here, you also need to be familiar with Git and especially with
git-buildpackage. There are a few references on the internet that explain
how it works, but it mostly easy for persons already familiar with Git.

>>
>> Is that accurate? In particular, I didn't find new upstream versions for:
>> opensm, rdmacm, ibumad and ibmad.
>>
> I talked about the jessie version, i see that sid and stretch is up to date.
> 

Unfortunately, Debian's release policy only allows fixes for major bugs or
security issues, using targetted fixes. So it is not possible to import new
upstream releases in Stable. It is possible to have the OFED stack backported
to jessie-backports so that users can benefit from it easily, but that should
be prepared carefully.

>>> One more thing, there is [2] packages that was maintained by Roland, i
>>> think that he is not doing any InfiniBand maintenance anymore, could
>>> you please advise who can be the maintainer of them, we would like
>>> that also those [2] packages to be updated.
>>>
>>
>> Progressively, Roland's packages which are related to OFED are brought
>> under the umbrella of this team team (pkg-ofed). This has been done for
>> libxml4 for example and could be done, when needed, for other packages
>> as well.
> 
> Thank you for your effort for taking those packages maintaining, we
> are interesting to update also [2] packages, so can you please take a
> maintaining of then and update them to upstream ?
> 

Packages listed in [2] will be updated when needed. Currently, only ibverbs
requires an update, afaics. We will take care of it.

-- 
Mehdi